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Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Cameroon: In Defence of the American Ambassador

Rather than castigate the US Ambassador for advising Biya to step down
after 36 years in power, Cameroonians should hail Ambassador Barlerin
for speaking truth to power. It’s time for Biya to go.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai, Boston, USA

US
Ambassador, Peter Henry Barlerin

If there ever was any doubt about the abysmal level to which governance
or leadership in Cameroon has fallen and how small the minds are in
very high places, the utterly reckless and bizarre response to the US
Ambassador, Peter Henry Barlerin, for advising President Biya to think
about his legacy; a move interpreted by Yaoundé as a call for Biya to
step down, is a melodrama which speaks to the intemperate desperation of
Cameroon’s vampire elite in their quest for Biya to remain in power,
and provide cannon fodder for their bare-face corruption and pillage of
the nation’s wealth. In a readout after an audience with President Biya
at Unity Palace last May 17, the US envoy said: “…the President and I
discussed upcoming elections. ‎I suggested to the President that he
should be thinking about his legacy and how he wants to be remembered in
the history books to be read by generations to come, and proposed that
George Washington and Nelson Mandela‎ were excellent models.” While
lamenting the absence of dialogue which has escalated the Anglophone
crisis, Ambassador Barlerin indicted security forces for “targeted
killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red
Cross, and burning and looting of villages.” Jolted by self-righteous
indignation and a mundane craving to ingratiate themselves to the
corridors of power, gaffing, goofing, dilatory goons, masquerading as
intellectuals and opinion leaders; including fifth columnists and sundry
regime apologists, took to the airwaves to castigate the Ambassador;
casting banal, vituperative aspersions on his person and declaring him,
persona non-grata. The bile and vitriol, including the obnoxious threat
by one Banda Kani; who on live TV, said Ambassador Barlerin will return
to America in a coffin, is a diplomatic sacrilege that does not edify
Cameroon as a nation. Cameroon deserves better. The
impropriety of inflaming primordial sentiments against a resident
ambassador is simply mind-boggling and inexcusable. And never again
should it happen! The attacks, like the sycophants behind them, are not
only pathetic; they are cheap and only reinforce Cameroon’s image as a
banana republic with highly dysfunctional institutions where bizarre
things can happen. In the event, the civic callousness by self-seeking
morons who plumbed the abyss of diplomatic rascality and drag the nation
to a hitherto unprecedented low; did a great disservice to the nation.
This is a shame and Cameroonians deserve full explanation for this
embarrassment. On the face of it, there is nothing the
Ambassador said that has not been in the domain of public discourse.
Images of arrests, torture, executions and burning of Anglophone
villages have gone viral on social media. It also does not require a
rocket scientist to figure out that Biya is tired. At 85, Biya is far on
the left side of the average age of African Presidents which is 63;
that’s pension time, or nearing it, in most countries. Put in context,
the European equivalent is 55; which is also the average age of American
presidents at their inauguration. Since taking office in 1982, Biya has
seen five French presidents - Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac,
Nicolas Sarkozy, Francois Hollande and Emmanuel Macron. In the same
period, Americans have elected six different presidents – Ronald Reagan,
George H Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald
Trump. Biya is also Africa’s oldest president and the second longest-
serving ruler; behind Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang Nguema, in power for 38
years. The president’s frequent trips abroad for medical
tourism continue to fuel speculations about his failing health. Keen
observers can determine Biya is showing more wear and tear mostly in the
wrinkles on his face; the deterioration in his husky voice; the alleged
diapers, uncontrollable flatulence, protracted anal blasts and the
declining swagger of his gait as witnessed during official outings when
he can barely walk. Biya now cuts the picture of an isolated man, frail,
distraught, distracted and completely out of touch. Honestly speaking,
to vilify the US Ambassador for advising an 85-year-old president to
step down, after 36 years, is a travesty that insults and diminishes
even Biya’s own person. Beyond the specifics of avuncular
admonition and verbal castigation, the assault on Barlerin is nothing
more than self-seeking, ignominious, whimsical and disdainful diplomatic
brigandage; more so as it transcends the fine line between free speech
and hate speech. Those sycophants, who saw Barlerin’s statement as an
attack on their power and unearned privileges, must be told in whatever
language they understand that Biya, like every mortal, will eventually
die but Cameroon will continue to exist! They should therefore
critically examine the issue of presidential succession raised rather
than waste time venting needless ad hominems in the public space.
Of course, the reckless behavior of Cameroon’s ruling elite which
caused the US envoy to speak truth to power as he did, are well known. A
gang of tired old kleptocrats tottering on the borders of senile decay
have captured and taken the nation hostage and are stealing the people
blind. Cameroon is about the only country in the world where noble minds
are ruled by ignoble characters; where thieves get national honors,
public servants get paid to steal, and law enforcement officials are
venerated for breaking the law. Despite its potential for greatness,
Cameroon has aimlessly drifted to become a nation of unimaginable
depravity: a forsaken nation ridden with corruption and
institutionalized banditry, a people dehumanized by widespread poverty
and decrepit infrastructure; and one bedeviled by tribalism, thriving
opportunism and heightened insecurity. At the head of the crime
syndicate called CPDM, is Paul Biya who cares not one whit about the
future of the country; he only wants to be president. Biya has
denigrated the presidency, transforming it into a clannish swindle and
so far as one can tell, his only visible strategy is just power without a
purpose. It will take a man and half to end the nation’s drift and
Biya’s inability to lead illustrates a poor dimension of presidential
stature and the amplification of the absence of leadership example, from
a president who has nothing more to offer Cameroonians. The
point must however be made with emphasis that every nation that respects
international law has a duty as well, in its very own interest, to seek
the socio-economic and political stability of its host nation. Unlike
Franco-Cameroon relations with a parasitic reverse umbilical cord, in
which the mother (France) feeds fat on the fetus (Cameroon), US
assistance to Cameroon is a one-way traffic. The US is Cameroon’s
leading investor, through the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project. US
food assistance since 2016 stands at over $80 million. From 2015 to
present, US military aid to Cameroon is $192,417,258; (FCFA 110 bn),
according to data from Security Assistance Monitor. Presently, there are
over 300 American military personnel and civilian contractors in the
Salak military base near Garoua helping the government fight Boko Haram.
Through the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the US
provides millions of dollars for free anti-retroviral drugs for
HIV/AIDS patients. American Peace Corps volunteers leave the comfort of
their home country to work in the most remote hinterlands, where even
Cameroonians refuse to go and work. Cameroon also enjoys preferential
trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA);
exporting goods, tariffs free to the US market. Certainly, antagonizing
the USA is a strategic mistake that cannot be in the national interest.
While some will dismiss the odious, desultory and even comical hubris
from the president’s men, the deafening silence of the presidency in the
face of the brazen callousness, audacity and debauchment of the US
diplomat is an affront to the nation and all Cameroonians must hide
their heads in shame, even as they wonder how their government can be so
imprudent. If Yaoundé saw anything wrong with the threats to kill the
US ambassador, it has taken them too long to make this known! The animus
and intemperate verbiage reeking of self-righteous indignation,
directed at Ambassador Barlerin, who spoke the minds of a majority of
Cameroonians is not the most ideal way to promote friendly relations,
which is one of the functions of adroit diplomacy. It has also been
reasonably argued that Barlerin should not have made public his private
discussions with Biya, for doing so suggests bad faith and risked
inciting the public against the regime. But even if Barlerin’s statement
amounted to interference, contrary to Article 41(1) of the Vienna
Convention, a more dignified and mature response would be to resolve the
issues diplomatically through the Ministry of External Relations. That
is statesmanship. If Biya had any sense of patriotism and
respect for democracy; if Biya was not so bereft of integrity as to
change the constitution to engender his life presidency; if Biya had not
gone cap in hand begging for handouts from America and other nations;
if Cameroon wasn’t embroiled in governance anomie, surely there would be
no reason for foreigners to define terms on which Cameroon should be
governed. The fact that Biya has reduced the Anglophone regions to
killing fields challenges our common humanity and it would have been a
dereliction of duty if Ambassador Barlerin had not called out the Biya
regime for the genocide and crimes against humanity. Therefore, rather
than waste time hurling insults at the US diplomat for speaking truth to
power, all patriotic Cameroonians should hail Ambassador Barlerin for
acting as a self-imposed moral ombudsman and conscience of a drifting
nation. However ill-conceived the Ambassador’s statement might be in
content and delivery, it is once again another reminder that history is
beckoning on Paul Biya and giving him a chance at winning the battle for
both self-redemption and national rebirth. The choice is patently
Biya’s to make.